Posts by Stuart Cheney

Stuart Cheney grew up on a 145 acre diversified farm near Brattleboro, VT. He resides on the farm in a small 5 room house built by his grandfather in 1940.

My Ole Dad

By Stuart Cheney / January 14, 2014

78 year old Vermont farmer Stuart Cheney shares memoirs with Lindsay Debach, daughter of a Pennsylvania-based butcher, after reading her Small Farm Quarterly piece “Slaughter Daughter”. My Dad was a big muscular fella about six foot with heavy broad shoulders. His arms were huge, and he had hands more like paws. It has been said…

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The Bad Bread

By Stuart Cheney / October 7, 2013

I guess it was back in ’96, things were going pretty well. I was driving the milk truck and Fred was running the farm. Calves weren’t worth anything though, and Fred asked if he could keep some of the bulls and raise them, as we weren’t having many heifers. About the time he began keeping…

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The Disappearing Hay

By Stuart Cheney / July 1, 2013

  One year about 1944 or ‘45 it was time to cut the second cutting of hay, more commonly called rowen back then. The farmer who lived across the road from where I live now, whose name was Dan, mowed down seven or eight acres of beautiful rowen on a field between where I live…

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The Cheney Letters

By Stuart Cheney / October 1, 2012

78 year old Vermont farmer shares memoirs with Lindsay Debach, daughter of a Pennsylvania-based butcher, after reading her Small Farm Quarterly piece “Slaughter Daughter”. Introduction In late February of this year I received a letter bearing the name of Stuart Cheney. A native of Brattleboro, Vermont, Stuart wrote to tell me that he enjoyed my…

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